Tech bills of the week: Creating data privacy standards; Securing critical infrastructure from drones; and more

Data privacy framework

A group of Republican lawmakers announced the introduction of two new data privacy bills on April 22: the SECURE Data Act and the GUARD Financial Data Act. Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Financial Services Committee — led by Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and French Hill, R-Ark., respectively — teamed up to create and introduce the proposals.

Both measures focus on the same six pillars: data minimization, data access rights, data deletion rights, sensitive data, national standards and avoiding dual regulation. 

The majority of these pillars give consumers control over how their data is collected and shared between institutions. It also defines sensitive data and mandates that controllers of that data take on more responsibility to inform consumers as to why and how their data is being collected and provide opt-out options. 

They also create national standards to avoid the patchwork of differing laws across states. 

“The Energy and Commerce Data Privacy Working Group was created to reset the discussion on comprehensive data privacy, taking wide ranging input from stakeholders and crafting a consensus bill that protects the privacy and security of Americans’ personal data,” the press release reads. “The SECURE Data Act is the result. This bill establishes clear, enforceable protections so that Americans remain in charge of their own data and companies are held accountable for its safe keeping.”

Protecting critical infrastructure from drones

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced legislation on Thursday that would allow critical infrastructure operators to better guard against drone incursions, including enabling them to use kinetic solutions to bring down rogue aerial systems. 

While federal, state, local and tribal entities and law enforcement officials have the authority to use counter-drone measures, the bill says that “private owners and operators of critical infrastructure lack clear statutory authority to independently detect, track, and mitigate in-flight unmanned aircraft systems threats.”

The legislation would establish a national certification program that would allow trained critical infrastructure owners and operators to take down unauthorized drones. Additionally, the proposal would direct the Department of Homeland Security to create a grant program that would enable critical infrastructure personnel to “purchase, install, and operate approved counter-unmanned aircraft systems.”

“Our hospitals, power plants, water treatment facilities, and other critical infrastructure sites can’t remain sitting ducks for potential drone attacks,” Cotton said in a statement. “My bill will ensure these important sites are protected from all unauthorized drones.”

No AI chatbots in kids' toys

The AI Children's Toy Safety Act, introduced by Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, aims to completely ban the creation and manufacturing of toys that include AI chatbots, citing data privacy concerns. 

“Every aspect of how we adopt artificial intelligence must be human-centric,” Moore’s press release reads. “America will continue to compete, innovate, and strive to break barriers in AI development, but we must prioritize basic ethics and restrain these tools where they will negatively impact human activity when it comes to privacy, safety, human development, and addiction.”

Federal action against biosecurity threats 

Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., both on the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced legislation on Tuesday to protect against biological threats at a national security level. 

The Engineering Biology Readiness Act comes as advanced generative artificial intelligence is projected to have a major impact on scientific research and discovery. It seeks to renew requirements for a National Biodefense Strategy and creates an interagency coordination effort to offer recommendations to mitigate the risks associated with frontier biological research. 

“Bioengineering has tremendous potential to accelerate innovation in health care, science, industry, and more. But there are also significant risks if these innovations are used the wrong way,” said Kaine. “As this field continues to change and grow, this bipartisan legislation would help Congress assess and mitigate those risks, while ensuring Americans continue to benefit from advances in biotechnology.”

The proposed bill would specifically renew the congressional reporting requirement for the biodefense strategy and have it last for five years to ensure the inclusion of advances in biotechnology. 

Balancing tech’s energy costs with low prices 

A cohort of Republican House lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday that attempts to thread the needle between increasing manufacturing and technology usage while keeping energy prices low. 

The DATA Act of 2026, introduced in the lower chamber by Reps. Nick Begich, R-Ark., Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and Burgess Owens, R-Utah, targets updating federal regulations to allow hyperscalers to maintain isolated, off-grid power plants to support energy generation for their individual products, thereby protecting consumers from rising rates. 

“America must win the race to lead in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies,” said Begich in the press release. “The DATA Act allows manufacturers to operate on fully self-contained, ‘grid-of-one’ power systems, so innovation can scale without forcing households to subsidize massive new energy demands or straining local utilities. For Alaska, this approach is especially critical. By leveraging our stranded energy assets and vast resource potential, this legislation creates a pathway for new jobs, new revenue, and long-term economic growth without raising energy costs for American families.”

Companion legislation exists in the Senate, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

Creating clear export control standards for chip sales to China

The chairman of the House China Select Committee rolled out legislation on Tuesday that would set guidelines on the types of advanced semiconductors that can be sold by U.S. companies to China-based firms.

The measure, from Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., attempts to limit China’s access to the most powerful chips that underpin artificial intelligence technologies. His bill, the Semiconductor Controls Adjusted to Limit Exports — or SCALE — Act, would direct the Secretary of Commerce, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, “to implement a process for establishing a rolling annual standard for the sale of certain integrated circuits to certain countries.”

The bill also sets a “rolling technical threshold” on the types of chips that can be sold to the Chinese market, with a press release from the congressman’s office saying that exports would only be permitted “up to 110 percent of the performance of chips that U.S. adversaries can already manufacture domestically at meaningful production levels which can be defined as at least 25 percent of their annual demand.”

Some U.S. lawmakers are concerned about China gaining access to American-made semiconductors and manufacturing equipment that can allow Beijing to ramp up development of its own more powerful AI tools. The bill’s introduction comes the same week that the House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a package of similar export control measures designed to limit China’s access to powerful chips.

“The SCALE Act will help secure the future of America’s dominance in artificial intelligence by ensuring American companies never sell the best chips in the world to China,” Moolenaar said in a statement. “By grounding semiconductor export controls in objective metrics, we can ensure a level playing field for American business, while protecting national security as China races to catch up to us.”

Improving agencies’ use of risk assessment tools

A bipartisan House proposal introduced on Tuesday looks to establish a federal commission to verify that agencies are using appropriate and accurate hazard risk assessment tools purchased from the private sector. 

The bill, the Advancing Consistent and Credible Use of Risk Assessment Tools and Evaluation — or ACCURATE — Act, is sponsored by Reps. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., and Gabe Amo, D-R.I. 

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, introduced the measure in the previous Congress. 

The legislation would direct the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology to create a “Commission on Hazard Risk Assessment Tools.” In a press release, Franklin’s office said this body “will recommend standards, methodologies, and procurement best practices to make these tools more consistent, credible, and transparent,” which would then be reviewed by the under secretary to determine whether or not they should be mandated for federal agencies to follow. 

“Federal agencies are making significant decisions about disaster response, infrastructure, and insurance using private-sector risk tools, but too often there is no consistent standard for how those tools are evaluated,” Franklin said in a statement. “The ACCURATE Act brings greater transparency and accountability to the process by establishing clear guidelines for how these tools are reviewed and used. This is about making sure federal decisions are based on sound, reliable data and taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely.”

Postal Service electronic notifications

Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., introduced legislation on Thursday that would direct the U.S. Postal Service to study the feasibility of providing customers with electronic notifications about weather events and their impact on mail delivery times. 

Scholten’s office said in a press release that USPS is currently not authorized to contact mail recipients to inform them of delivery delays.

“My Postal Alert and Weather Preparedness Act would take a commonsense step to modernize USPS communications so families can be better informed, plan ahead, and stay safe during inclement weather,” Scholten said in a statement. “This is about making sure our federal agencies are working smarter and more effectively for the people they serve.”

Grants for AI-powered veteran suicide prevention

Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., formally introduced a measure on Thursday that would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a grant program to provide support to organizations outside the agency looking to leverage artificial intelligence and more powerful predictive analytics for veteran-focused suicide prevention efforts. The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.

A discussion draft of Mackenzie’s bill, the Data-Driven Suicide Prevention and Outreach Act, previously received consideration during a House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health legislative hearing in January.

The pilot program created through the legislation would be in effect through 2029 and include guardrails around the use, security and privacy of veterans’ data. VA has an internal predictive model, known as the Recovery Engagement and Coordination for Health-Veteran Enhanced Treatment — or REACH VET — program, that uses machine learning to identify veterans in the top 0.1% of suicide risk by analyzing health records for specific indicators of potential self-harm.

In an interview with Nextgov/FCW last month, Mackenzie said his proposal builds upon VA models, like REACH VET, “that already have been out there and use predictive analytics to identify vets who are at the highest statistical risk for suicide, and proactively kind of connect them with tailored care and outreach.”

He added that his measure would “allow grant funding for the development of those predictive models created with AI and machine learning, so that we can figure out what’s best to evaluate those risk factors and figure out which ones are the ones that we should be paying attention to most closely that contribute to incidents of suicide.”

Stopping fraud in federal programs

On Thursday, the heads of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the House Budget Committee, James Comer, R-Ky., and Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, introduced two bills meant to tamp down on fraud in government programs. 

The first directs agencies to delay government payments if there’s reason to think that they’re fraudulent, and allows the Treasury Department to return payment requests to government agencies if they’re at risk of fraud. 

The other directs Treasury to work with agencies to verify payment information before they go out the door by expanding tools like the existing Do Not Pay system.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, also unveiled an anti-fraud legislative package, bundling several existing proposals, this week.

Warrant requirements for searching Americans’ data

Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., introduced legislation on Thursday that would require the government to obtain a warrant before conducting searches of U.S. citizens’ personal data, as well as provide Americans with a “right of action” to sue if their Fourth Amendment protections are violated. The bill aims to address gray areas and controversial surveillance practices where existing law allows the government to access Americans’ data without judicial permission.

The measure, the Surveillance Accountability Act, would mandate that the government “not access any data, metadata, or personal information held by a third party, including financial services providers, telecommunication service providers, internet service providers, cloud storage companies, or data brokers, without a valid warrant, regardless of whether the third party consents or cooperates.”

It includes a list of exceptions, including for plain view searches, verification of government-issued photo IDs and the collection and review of publicly available data. These exceptions, however, would not extend to biometric data obtained through facial recognition systems or to vehicle metadata collected from license plate readers.

In a press release, Massie said “warrantless searches are unconstitutional, and this does not change when the data the government seeks is in digital formats or held by a third party.” 

Three-year extension of FISA 702

House Republicans rolled out a new measure on Thursday to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for an additional three years. The bill includes minimal reforms to the controversial surveillance measure but does not require the FBI to obtain a warrant before conducting searches of U.S. citizens’ data collected through the program. 

The proposed 702 reauthorization, which is set to expire on April 30 after Congress passed a 10-day extension of the program last week, does include several new oversight provisions. 

The statute lets intelligence agencies compel internet service providers to furnish communications of foreigners located abroad without a warrant. But the process can also collect U.S. person communications if they are in contact with a foreign target, raising Fourth Amendment concerns when the contents of those U.S. person calls, text messages and emails are subsequently searched.

The measure would direct the attorney general to issue new procedures around congressional access to the proceedings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and also require monthly audits of the FBI’s 702-related searches of Americans’ data by a civil liberties protection officer within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 

It would also expand criminal penalties for abuse of Americans’ collected data, including prohibiting government personnel from targeting U.S. citizens through the program. The Government Accountability Office would also be mandated to audit targeting procedures and report its findings to Congress. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also introduced a clean reauthorization bill in the upper chamber that would extend Section 702 for an additional three years that does not include any of the oversight reforms included in the House proposal. 

Transparency standards for AI-generated content

Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., introduced legislation on Friday that would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology “to facilitate and inform the development of technical standards and guidelines relating to the identification of content created by generative artificial intelligence” — including digital watermarking and fingerprinting for audio or visual content generated by AI.

The measure, co-sponsored by Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and Republican Delegate James Moylan of Guam, would also require NIST to assist content providers with labeling content that has been modified at all through the use of AI.  

“Deepfakes and AI-generated audio and visual content poses major risks to consumers, our elections, and public trust,”  Foushee said in a statement. “Clear labeling and transparency of this content must be required so Americans can distinguish what images, audio, and videos are artificially generated.”

Congressional commission to review economic impacts of AI

House lawmakers introduced a measure on Monday to help prepare for the coming impact of broad artificial intelligence adoption on the U.S. economy by establishing a bipartisan, bicameral commission to develop policy recommendations for Congress.

The bill, from Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., would direct this commission to “evaluate workforce development, education systems, federal AI adoption, and strategies to strengthen U.S. competitiveness in emerging technologies.”

The House measure is a companion to legislation introduced in the upper chamber last month by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

“Artificial intelligence will reshape every sector of our economy, and Congress has a responsibility to prepare for those changes,” Obernolte said in a statement. “This legislation brings together experts and lawmakers to develop clear, actionable recommendations to strengthen our workforce, support American workers, and ensure the United States continues to lead the world in innovation.”